The Leader has been named the best large weekly newspaper in Arkansas. It has offices in Jacksonville and Cabot and covers north Pulaski County, Lonoke County and White County. The Leader is a family owned and operated newspaper that was founded in 1987.

Friday, September 10, 2010

TOP STORY >> Arnold Drive one of best in Arkansas

IN SHORT: Elementary school on base is tied for third place for achievement.By Rick KronLeader staff writer

For the second year in a row, Arnold Drive Elementary on Little Rock Air Force Base has been named one of the top schools in the state by the University of Arkansas.It was the only school in the Pulaski County Special School District to make the list. Only one Little Rock school was on the high-performing list and none from North Little Rock.

“We’re ecstatic. We have such a professional team of educatiors. We have strong parental support and also from Air Force personnel. All that goes to make an outstanding learning community,” principal Julie Davenport said after learning of her school’s high ranking.

Cabot had two schools on the top 20 list of elementary schools and Searcy had two on the middle school list.

Arnold Drive actually finished in a six-way tie for third place with 95 percent of its students scoring proficient or advanced in both the 2009-2010 math and literacy benchmark scores.

The U.S. Education Department this week named Arnold Drive a Blue Ribbon school for academic excellence, one of only four schools Arkansas to get the award.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan will present the award in November in Washington.

Arnold Drive Elementary has about 250 students and about half are on free or reduced lunch. The average percentage of students on free or reduced lunch on the top 20 list is 32 percent.

So Arnold Drive is scoring well with a higher number of students on free or reduced lunch being instructed in a school that was built more than 40 years ago as a temporary facility.

The website Schooldigger.com gives Arnold Drive a five-star rating, placing it 16th among the state’s 457 elementary schools, but the same website give PCSSD just one star and ranks it 172nd out of 236 state school districts.

Cabot had two elementary schools in the top 20, Magness Creek Elementary, which was also on the list the year before, and Stagecoach Elementary.

Magness Creek was listed as 17th on the list, but was actually in a three-way tie for fifth best as 93 percent of its students were proficient or advanced on both math and literacy exams.

Stagecoach, with 92 percent of its student scoring proficient or advanced, made the list for the first time at number 20, but was actually in a two-way tie for sixth.The ranking is done by the university’s office for education policy, which annually reviews all the scoring data from the state’s schools.

Looking at just the math benchmark scores, Arnold Drive Elementary was third in the state with 97 percent of its students scoring above the cut-off.

Stagecoach was listed 16th on the list, looking at only the math scores. With 96 percent of its students scoring proficient or advanced, it was actually in an 11-way tie for fourth.

In ranking elementary schools strictly by their performance on the literacy benchmark exams, the university listed Arnold Drive as 18th on the list of top-20 schools. But with 92 percent of its students reading at or above grade level, the school was actually in a six-way tie for sixth.

Cabot Middle School placed 20th on the list of high-performing schools based on math scores only. With 86 percent of its students making the cut, the school was actually in 10th place.

Searcy had two schools make the top-20 list of high performing middle schools.Southwest Middle School was listed as 10th best in the state, but was actually in a two-way tie for fifth place as 89 percent of its students were proficient or advanced on both the math and literacy benchmark tests. The school was also on the top-performing list last year.

Ahlf Junior High broke into the list at number 20, in a four-way tie for eighth place with 86 percent of its students proficient or advanced.

Searcy’s Southwest Middle School was listed at number 15 and with 88 percent of its students proficient or advanced, was in a four-way tie for eighth place.

Southwest, along with Ahlf Junior High, finished fourth and fifth on the list of top schools based only on literacy scores. At both schools, 90 percent of the students scored proficient or better, putting the schools in a four-way tie for second.

The university’s research showed that most of the top elementary schools came from central Arkansas, while most of the top middle schools came from northwest Arkansas, five of them from the Bentonville School District.